The Journal of Historical and Mythical Tales
Ancient and medieval history and myth, from primary sources, saying plainly where the evidence runs out.
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The Legend of El Dorado
How the legend of El Dorado grew, and what the evidence behind it actually shows.
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The Mayan Calendar and 2012
One Maya inscription mentions the 2012 date, and it describes a ceremony. How three calendars worked, and where the prophecy came from.
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Robin Hood: How England Built an Outlaw
In the earliest ballads Robin is a yeoman who robs abbots and sheriffs. How the outlaw who gives to the poor was built, century by century.
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The Knights Templar: Fact, Fiction and the Real Story
A king who owed them money destroyed them, using charges his own Pope privately dismissed. What the Templars actually were.
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The Oracle of Delphi: How the Pythia Actually Worked
Nine consultation days a year, sold access, and a fault line under the temple. How Delphi held authority over the Greek world for a thousand years.
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Medusa: The Real Story Behind the Gorgon Myth
The Medusa story everyone knows is Roman, not Greek. The original version, what Ovid changed, and why the face came before the story.
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Ragnarok: The Norse Myth of the End
Ragnarok is not only destruction. The full sequence, which gods die, and the rebirth most retellings leave out.
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King Arthur: History, Legend, or Both?
No contemporary source mentions Arthur. Where the legend came from, what each century added, and what Tintagel really produced.
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The Trojan War: What the Archaeology at Troy Can and Cannot Settle
A Bronze Age ruin, a poem four centuries younger, and a long silence in between. What the archaeology at Troy can and cannot settle.
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What We Really Know About Atlantis
Every Atlantis theory traces back to two dialogues by Plato and nothing else. What the evidence shows, and why the myth refuses to die.